"You need to see this movie. It's a brain-thumper. It makes you think, exposes you to new ideas. You need to see this movie, you'll be a better person because of it. What was the last movie you saw that was a brain-thumper? You must be a close-minded person if you refuse to see A Clockwork Orange."
No, I'm not. I choose not to see A Clockwork Orange not because I'm close-minded, but because I am unwilling to expose myself to the graphic images I know it contains. It's not that I'm unwilling to discuss the themes or ideas it expresses, I'd be happy to do so if someone would introduce me to them. And I don't feel that it's necessary to experience the ideas as they are presented first-hand. I don't want to expose myself to the images because I don't want to have those pictures stuck in my brain.
I am a very visual person. Sometimes I need to be able to see something in my mind's eye before I can understand it. I'll have trouble comprehending if I can't picture it. Sometimes I'll groan during animated conversation with friends because I can picture what they're talking about-- and I don't want to.
It's the same reason why I don't go to haunted houses or watch horror movies anymore, not because I'm scared, but because I really don't want those images replaying in my mind-- corpses and blood and terrified people. I've still got images from Event Horizon burned in my brain and I saw that, what? 4 years ago? Oh, and scenes from Christine-- I'm still carrying those around and I must have seen that in like '86. I'm not exactly sure, but sometime in the mid-80's. 15 years ago!
I feel that I am perfectly justified in not wanted to see this movie, and I don't appreciate being called close-minded for my refusal. If someone is small-minded enough to think that seeing one movie is going to open all sorts of intellectual doors for me, and that my reluctance to enter this "new world" of thought makes me less of an educated or open person, well, then, boo to them. Bah, I say.
"If it is the images that you take away from this movie, then you obviously have missed the point." Not so, just because it is the images that will continue to actively haunt me does not mean that I have not understood the message of a movie. I don't understand why the two should be mutually exclusive. That doesn't make sense. And you know what, if these are the kind of arguments and points you have to make about seeing the movie, I don't think I want to bother seeing the movie itself in order to discuss it with you. I think that would be a fairly pointless conversation, kinda like this one.